Ceramics are an unparalleled resource for women's lives in ancient Greece, since they show a huge number of female types and activities. This much-needed study shows that it is vital to see the vases as archaeology as well as art.

Here Sian Lewis considers the full range of female existence in classical Greece - childhood and old age, unfree and foreign status, and the ageless woman characteristic of Athenian red-figure painting.

Ceramics are an unparalleled resource for women's lives in ancient Greece, since they show a huge number of female types and activities. Yet it can be difficult to interpret the meanings of these images, especially when they seem to conflict with literary sources.

This much-needed study shows that it is vital to see the vases as archaeology as well as art, since context is the...

Tyrants and tyranny are more than the antithesis of democracy and the mark of political failure: they are a dynamic response to social and political pressures.
This book examines the autocratic rulers and dynasties of classical Greece and Rome and the changing concepts of tyranny in political thought and culture. It brings together historians, political theorists and philosophers, all offering new perspectives on the autocratic governments of the ancient world.
The volume is divided into four parts. Part I looks at the ways in which the term 'tyranny' was used and understood, and the...

Sian Lewis explores the role of news and information in shaping Greek society from the sixth to the fourth centuries, b.c. Applying ideas from the study of modern media to her analysis of the functions of gossip, travel, messengers, inscriptions, and institutions in the polis, she demonstrates that news was a vital concern for the ancient Greeks. Specifically, the acquisition and exchange of information played a key role in determining status and power.

Proceeding from a discussion of individual citizens involved in the exchange of news to an account of more complex forms of...

The tyrants of Greece are some of the most colourful figures in antiquity, notorious for their luxury, excess and violence, and provoking heated debates among political thinkers. Greek Tyranny examines the phenomenon of autocratic rule outside the law in archaic and classical Greece, offering a new interpretation of the nature of tyranny. The development of tyrannical government is examined in theory and in practice, embracing lesser-known rulers such as the tagoi of Thessaly and the Hecatomnids of Halicarnassus, as well as canonical figures like the Pisistratid rulers of Athens and the...